He said it for her. She took it from him; she found lively excitement in the pleasure of making his language her own. She asked for further indulgence; all the old school pieces were revived, and with them Shirley's old school days.
He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille, and then had heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice, that modulated itself faithfully on his. "Le chêne et le Roseau," that most beautiful of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited, by the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself of the lesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them now, that their enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetry no longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of English oak to be thrown as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed, "And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing more dramatic, nervous, natural!"
And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature seemed serenely alight. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, musing not unblissfully.
Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day. The schoolroom windows—darkened with creeping plants, from which no high October winds had as yet swept the sere foliage—admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but the fire gave light enough to talk by.
And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered at first with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouraged while he corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholars stood opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists. Tartar, who long since had craved and obtained admission, sat sagely in the centre of the rug, staring at the blaze which burst fitful from morsels of coal among the red cinders. The group were happy enough, but—
"Pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flower—its bloom is shed."
The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in the yard.
"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be just ready, and I am not dressed."
A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and his pupil usually dined at luncheon time.
"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip Nunnely is with them."